Submarine Channel
It’s a remarkable paradox. How can something so explicit and elementary be so subtle and elegant at the same time? We are talking about the collection of pictograms that was designed by the German artist Gerd Arntz (1900-1988) and which is now published online for everybody to study in minute detail.
Arntz was connected to the Cologne based ‘progressive artists group’ and depicted the life of workers in abstracted figures on woodcuts. His work was noticed by Otto Neurath, a social scientist and founder of the Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna. Neurath had developed a method to communicate complex information on society, economy and politics in simple images. For his ‘Vienna method of visual statistics’, he needed a designer who could make elementary signs, pictograms that could summarize a subject at a glance.
Arntz’s clear-cut style suited Neurath’s goals perfectly, and so he invited the young artists to come to Vienna in 1928, and work on further developing his method, later known as ISOTYPE, International System Of TYpographic Picture Education. During his career, Arntz designed around 4000 different pictograms and abstracted illustrations for this system.
If you want to know more of Arntz‘craftmanship and other interesting designers of visual communication, we strongely recommend the book: Lovely Language by Veenman Publishers. The book’s design is just like the pictograms of Arntz: beautiful!
